NOT many people can lay claim to having the autograph of Miss Sri Lanka 1986 or 'Nicole' from the famous Renault television adverts, but these are just a couple of the more unusual signatures that Bidford man Dennis Malin has collected.

Mr Malin, aged 68, of Jubilee Close, took the time recently to reflect on some of the 150 or so individual signatures he has collected over the years.

American chat show host Joan Rivers and World Cup-winning England manager Sir Alf Ramsey were some of the famous names he was lucky enough to meet while working as a gardener at Anne Hathaway's Cottage in Stratford, a job he held from 1982 until retirement in 1999.

It was a perfect job for him as he loves gardening and liked meeting the famous people who visited the cottage. They included some of the cast of EastEnders, Emu's partner Rod Hull, actors Roy Kinnear and Brian Blessed and Sky's football summariser Andy Gray.

He said: "I don't really know how and when it started. I guess I just like meeting famous people and talking to them. I only had a few names before I started at the cottage and some days the amount of famous people who visited was never-ending."

"There are many other famous people I have met but sometimes it's quite difficult to get autographs because a lot of people don't carry a pen."

A classic example of this was when he was returning to England from Jersey and saw among his fellow passengers on the boat the late Desmond Llewelyn, known to James Bond fans as "Q". He also saw rock star Annie Lennox sitting in a caf in Stratford once but decided not to bother her because she looked busy.

His latest prize was the signature of actor Warren Clarke, which he managed to get when the TV crew for BBC detective drama Dalziel and Pascoe were filming in Temple Grafton, near Bidford, last month.

The unusual hat Dennis is wearing in the pictures was once featured on BBC1's That's Life, whose presenter, Esther Rantzen, is another one of his signature trophies.

He said: "Esther was great when she came to the cottage. It was some time after my hat had been on TV. My back was turned at the time and she came up to me and said 'I know who you are, I recognise the hat'."

Coach couriers soon got to know about his badge-covered hat and that only helped him collect more autographs. One of these was Home and Away actress Kate Ritchie and perhaps strangest of all, an American policewoman who helped to arrest mass-murderer Charles Manson.

Students visiting the cottage also gave him badges to add to his hat, which is covered in 203 of them and makes him stand out from the crowd, something that helped him to meet actress Joanna Lumley when she opened the Fred Winter store in Stratford.

So, which autograph would he most like to have in his collection?

"Ruby Wax, I think she is great and she's also very funny. I am sure it would be a pleasure to meet her or Rachel de Thame from Gardeners' World - she's very nice too."